In Search of the Rose Notes (26 page)

“
Poooooo-
dle
pooooooop,
” it croaked.

I giggled out loud, then slapped my hand over my mouth.

Charlotte stood up. “Get out of here!” she snapped.

“I swear that wasn’t me,” Toby said, grinning his guilt.

“That wasn’t even funny,” she said, glaring at me. “Both of you, get out of here if you can’t take this seriously.”

Toby pulled me gently by the sleeve. “Let’s go, then.”

“No, Charlotte,” I said. “It’s almost dark. You can’t stay here by yourself.”

“A few minutes of quiet here would be more useful than all this… all these… shenanigans.”

Toby and I glanced at each other, and I started giggling again.

Charlotte pushed my shoulder with her fingertips. “Get out of here, then.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“Just go. We’ll listen to it all tomorrow.”

Toby led me out of the trees, and I found I was happy to be away from there. Even if it meant I was alone with Toby with nothing to say.

“What’s that all about anyway?” he asked me as we stood by the road. “You guys are ghost hunting?”

“Sort of.”

“In the woods? Wouldn’t it make more sense to do it in an old house or something? Like mine? There’s this one room we’ve got that’s haunted.”

“We’re not looking for any ghost. We’re hoping to get something from Rose—or… um,
about
Rose.”

Toby said nothing for a while, just breathed heavily, noisily through his nose.

“When Charlotte had me grab Phil, she seemed pretty sure Rose was alive,” he said finally. “Now she thinks she’s a ghost?”

I gazed up into Toby’s slightly crossed eye. Its gentle droop made his face seem always sympathetic.

“
I
think she probably is,” I mumbled.

“You do?”

“Yeah.”

“You think something happened there in that spot?”

“Well… I don’t know what happened or where it happened. But I think she’s…”

“Dead?” Toby said.

“Yeah,” I admitted sadly.

Toby nodded solemnly, shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans, and started walking. I walked alongside him even though we were going in the wrong direction for me—up the hill, toward his house. In spite of our grim topic, I liked the novelty of this—walking on a sidewalk with a boy, talking to him almost as easily as if he were Charlotte. Even if the boy was only Eyeball.

“They say you were the last person to see Rose,” Toby said, looking straight ahead.

“Yeah,” I replied. “I guess.”

“Do you ever wonder if it’s really true?”

“Whaddaya mean?”

“Well, that you were the
last.
You’re the last person to see her that they
know
about, but that doesn’t really mean you’re the last.”

“That might be true. But it’s the last person they know about that matters.”

“No,” Toby stopped walking for a moment, shaking his head. “It’s the one they
don’t
know about that matters.”

He had a point there. Eyeball really wasn’t as stupid as Charlotte liked to think.

“What if someone else came out and said they saw her after that?” he asked. “
After
you?”

I shrugged. “That would be good, I think. Because they could probably give the police more clues.”

“But it would be weird, wouldn’t it?”

“Because it’s been a while,” I agreed, “so why would somebody suddenly say they had seen her after me?”

“Yeah,” Toby said slowly. “It would seem like they were lying.”

“Or like they weren’t sure they were remembering right,” I said.

“Or they’d been hiding something,” Toby added.

“Yeah.”

“So you probably were the last person to see her,” Toby said. “The last person that matters anyway.”

“Yeah, probably,” I admitted, hoping it didn’t sound too conceited to say so.

We’d reached Toby’s house by then. Its dull white paint looked sickly gray against the dusk. Such a big old house—too big, I thought, for just a dad and two boys. It hadn’t seemed so when Toby’s grandmother was alive. She’d owned the house for a long time and had kept it charming and neat. Now the Dean men seemed like guests in a dead lady’s house.

“I should probably go home,” I said. It was getting dark fast.

I could barely make out Mr. Dean sitting outside in a lawn chair. It was the chair that Joe usually sat in during the summer, just in front of the shed where he worked on his crazy projects. Now it was smack in the middle of the lawn, between the shed and the root cellar. A small, round orange dot glowed in front of Mr. Dean for a moment, then faded, like a firefly. He was smoking, but I was too far away to smell it. It seemed pretty cold to be lounging outside, but maybe Mr. Dean wanted to keep the smoke smell out of his house. He didn’t usually smoke much.

“Hi,” I said, waving, feeling bold. Usually I waited for parents to acknowledge me first, but Mr. Dean was so humbly sad sometimes that he motivated an unusual friendliness in me.

“Evening,” he replied hoarsely.

“You want me to walk you home, then?” Toby asked.

I shrugged. “If you want.”

“Okay,” he said.

When we reached Mrs. Crowe’s, Toby said, “Maybe tomorrow you and Charlotte can come record at my house.”

“Maybe,” I said.

Chapter Sixteen

May 27, 2006

Neither Charlotte nor I spoke until we were more than halfway home.

“You really just heard about all of this in this past week?” I asked. “About the accident?”

“Wednesday night,” Charlotte admitted. “I showed him the
Looking Glass
things after you showed me the stuff that might be connected to Brian and Sally. I thought he might find it interesting, too. He kind of freaked out when he saw it. Then he told me. Said he was planning on telling me soon anyway, actually. What with the drama about my dad being questioned and all.”

“Jesus.”

“When we were kids, there was something between Paul and Rose. I really wondered about it. I was afraid… well, I don’t know what I was afraid of, exactly. Doesn’t matter. We know what it was now, I guess.”

“Who else has Paul told?”

“Well, he told his wife a few years ago. Said he had no idea if Aaron would’ve told anyone or not. They didn’t stay in touch. They were never very close. I guess that’s why he thought it was possible Aaron had done something to Rose. He’d be the one with the most to lose if Rose started telling people what had happened. He was the driver.”

Charlotte turned in to the Stop & Shop parking lot.

“We need anything else for this picnic thing?”

“Marshmallows. I forgot marshmallows.”

Charlotte’s cell phone began to ring. She ignored it.

“I’m sorry I was crazy last night. I wasn’t just upset about my dad. On top of that was what Paul told me, and then hearing that you had talked to Sally without telling me… . I thought maybe you somehow knew and were going behind my back to find out about it.”

“I contacted her because I thought maybe,
maybe
she’d written the
Looking Glass
poems,” I explained. “It was just a lark. It wasn’t my intention to talk about your brother. I had no idea about this stuff about the accident. I had no idea what it would lead to.”

“I understand,” Charlotte said, shrugging.

She shifted in her seat, let go of the keys in the ignition, and sighed.

“Speaking of that old
Looking Glass
stuff… seems like Brian’s letter and those poems are related. Both were in 1996. Probably involve the same person or people.”

“That letter really did look like Rose’s handwriting,” I added.

“I’d have to see it again and hold it up against her dream notes to really be convinced,” Charlotte said. “Maybe it’s just a good imitation. Rose couldn’t send it herself. Rose was dead. So who does that leave?”

“Someone who knew about the accident,” I said. “And if Paul didn’t tell anyone, that just leaves Aaron, or someone he knew.”

Charlotte was quiet for a moment. “Well,” she said slowly, “Paul actually told one other person. Back then.”

“Yeah?” I studied Charlotte’s tired eyes, trying to decide if she wanted me to ask.

“My dad,” she said. “He panicked and told my dad.”

“Really?” I said uneasily.

“Honestly, Paul just told me this yesterday,” Charlotte said quickly. “There was a point when Rose was apparently losing it. Couldn’t handle what they’d done. Couldn’t handle it being a secret. She wanted to confess. She was threatening to write to the police about it, the newspaper. Even go directly to the Pilkingtons. And I guess my dad was afraid of being sued or something.”

“So…” I hesitated. “What did your dad do about it?”

“Nothing, as far as Paul knows. Wanted to chat with his lawyer about it before they said anything, I guess. Asked Rose not to say anything till he had a chance to do that. But a couple of weeks later, Rose was gone… .” Charlotte frowned. “By then I guess it was sort of like… what was the point?”

The space between Charlotte and me was quiet again for a moment. Was I not supposed to make a big deal out of this? Was I supposed to tell her it was all okay? Was I supposed to act like it was perfectly normal for a grown man—a well-respected member of the community, no less—to know that his son was involved in an accident that had paralyzed another kid and to say nothing about it?

Charlotte’s phone rang again.

“I’ll get this,” she said, “While you go get the marshmallows.”

As I scanned the Stop & Shop cookie aisle for graham crackers, I thought about how it was Charlotte who’d first introduced me to s’mores. We were about nine, and she’d just come home from a camping trip with her family. They’d had all the ingredients left over, and she’d convinced her dad to let us bake marshmallows in the oven—just one for each of us. I remembered him chuckling as he pulled the two jiggling brown puffs out of the oven, looking small and lonely in the very middle of the large metal cookie sheet where Charlotte had positioned them. And Charlotte had so delighted in watching my reaction when I ate my s’more—far more than in eating her own.
I can’t BELIEVE you’ve never had one before,
she’d repeated proudly. I couldn’t quite grasp that this had happened in the very same kitchen where Charlotte and I were headed now. It seemed that afternoon had happened to three different people, in a different dimension.

I paid for the marshmallows, graham crackers, and other treats and headed back out to Charlotte’s Saturn.

“Do you remember that time when we made s’mores in your oven?” I asked, reaching for my seat-belt buckle.

Charlotte looked distant and disinterested. “There’s been a change in plans,” she murmured.

“Hmm?”

“My mother. She’s staying in New Jersey. For now.”

“What about the cookout?”

Charlotte shrugged. “Says she’s sorry about that. Says her sister wants her to stay a little longer, wants her to stay for my cousin’s stupid community play or something. I’m guessing, actually, she just doesn’t want to come home. I guess she talked to Paul about what’s happening. She can’t stand his drama sometimes. Always lets me deal with it.”

“Well, that sucks,” I said, referring to the picnic.

“You’re not missing out on much, watching my mother eat half a burger and then doze off in her lawn chair.”

“Still would’ve been nice to see her,” I said uncertainly.

“Yeah, well. She can be inconsiderate sometimes. But maybe I’m being cynical. Maybe she’s really dying to see that community production of
Brigadoon.
”

Charlotte didn’t say anything for the last mile home. As she drove, I considered Brian’s letter again. The truth about his accident was overwhelming enough—along with Charlotte’s father’s knowledge of it and, most disturbing, perhaps, that Rose had likely sat down at some point and written a full account of it. And one small detail kept needling me as I tried to absorb all this information:
Datsun versus Dodge, clunker versus clunker…
I hadn’t thought much about it when I’d read the letter, but it came back to me as we approached Charlotte’s house.

When we got home, Charlotte threw her purse down and retreated to her bedroom. I followed her but hesitated by her doorway. Standing in the doorframe, I watched her curl up on her bed.

“You okay?” I said.

“I don’t know, Nora. Glad my mom’s not coming home, though. I don’t have the energy to pretend to be all right this weekend.”

“Do you want to talk?” I said.

“I don’t know,” Charlotte replied, closing her eyes. “It depends on what you want to say.”

I leaned against the door, feeling inadequate.

“You can come in, you know,” she said. “If you want. Come in and sit down.”

I stepped into the room and sat at the swivel chair behind her work desk, which was covered with a pile of multicolored plastic file folders. Each folder had a tab in English-teacher language:
“Mice Men Unit.” “Hamlet Unit.” “Per 2 Homework Corrected.” “Per 5 Homework TB Corrected.” “Sophomores—Misc. Crap.”
She’d actually written
“Misc. Crap”
on a file folder. Granted, it all looked like misc. crap to me. There was one file folder on the floor, notebook paper spilling out onto the beige carpet.

“Remember that day with the tape recorder?” Charlotte asked, opening her eyes.

“Yeah. Sort of.”

And as I said so, it occurred to me that that was the last time I’d been in this room—the last day I’d come over Charlotte’s when we were kids. We’d fought that day, and I’d never come over again.

“Sort of?” Charlotte said. “I remember it so well. You were in rare form that day. Don’t you remember how you destroyed my tape?”

“Yeah.”

“You snapped that day. It was kind of like you decided that afternoon that we weren’t gonna be friends anymore.”

“I’m not sure if I
decided.
I wasn’t that calculating as a kid,” I said.

“But after that day it was very clear. You didn’t want to come over to my house. You wanted to be alone.”

“I was a weird kid. What can I say?”

“I was always confused about what happened. What I’d maybe done to make you feel that way.”

I wondered how we were supposed to talk about this—seriously, as Charlotte did? Or with an air of amused distance, as Toby had wanted to talk about prom night? On what terms could any of us really explain how we were when we were kids? And how much could that explanation really mean now?

“After a while, after Rose disappeared, you were different. You got weird. You were really quiet all of a sudden. You didn’t—”

“I was weird before that, Charlotte. That’s what everybody forgets.”

“Not that weird, really.” Charlotte pulled herself up on her bed and twirled a lock of hair in her finger. “Nora, were you afraid of my dad?”

“Your dad? No. I was afraid of you.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I. I was afraid you’d never stop until…”

“Until what, Nora?”

“Until… I don’t know. I was a dumb kid. I was confused. You kept trying to get me to talk. And I didn’t know how to talk about things.”

“Like what things? What didn’t you know how to talk about?”

“I don’t know,” I repeated, muttering.

Charlotte looked out the window for a moment. I followed her gaze to the expanse of grass where the Hemsworth trampoline used to be. I wondered when the trampoline had been removed and the hole filled in with dirt and planted over with grass.

“ ‘The last to see her alive,’ ” Charlotte whispered. “That bothered you so much, didn’t it? And I used to badger you. I get it. It annoyed you. But that day, that last day, when we fought. What were you afraid I’d make you say?”

As she asked the question, that day came into focus. It was the last time I’d been in this room. Oddly, the room hadn’t changed much since then. Sure, Charlotte’s frilly lilac bedspread and curtains were gone—replaced by simple wooden blinds and a fluffy mint green duvet. But the furniture was in the same arrangement—bed by the window, desk by the door. The carpet was still beige. Everything still smelled like cigarettes.

“Don’t do this, Charlotte,” I said.

“Something about my dad? Were you afraid I didn’t know my dad could be a dick sometimes? Were you afraid I didn’t already know that? Or was it something worse?”

I stared at the wide, empty swath of carpet in the middle of the room. That was where I’d always spread my sleeping bag when I slept over. Where I’d sit cross-legged doing my homework or flip through Charlotte’s black books. Where I’d gaze at my favorite picture in all of them—the statues on Easter Island.

“Come on, Nora. You were the last to see her alive. Was it something worse?”

The last to see her alive.
This was the spot where I’d lost it on Charlotte, that last day we were friends.
The last to see her alive,
ringing in my ears till I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Something worse?” I repeated.
Maybe a kid… a kid thinking it was the right thing to do. Datsun versus Dodge, clunker versus clunker.

“You came all the way back here, after all these years. The last to see her alive. You must have something more to say.”

I stood up, my mind racing.
Datsun versus Dodge. The last to see her alive.
The Hemsworths’ trampoline—once a deep hole, now filled in.

“Something about my dad? Something about Paul? Did you say something to the police about them, Nora?”

Charlotte was now studying me carefully.

“Nora,” she said. “Your face is white.”

She stood up and gently clasped my arm.

“You never answered my question,” she reminded me. “About Paul. About my dad.”

“I never thought anything so terrible, Charlotte. I never allowed myself to articulate what I was so afraid of. But it was never anything like that.”

Charlotte gripped my arm tighter.

“But why this look on your face, then? Like death warmed over? Nora, did you say something to the police about my dad?”

“
No,
Charlotte.
Nothing.
I think I stood up too fast,” I said, clawing her fingers off my sleeve. “Calm down.”

“Oh.” Charlotte let her hand drop and sat on her bed again. “Because I can explain about my dad. I’m not sure about now, but back then, when Paul told him about the accident… he wasn’t trying to shut Rose up. He wanted Paul and Rose to keep quiet till he had a chance to chat with his lawyer about it.”

“You mentioned that,” I said quietly.

“Maybe he dragged his feet, and when he got around to it, Rose was already gone. Bringing it up after that could get messy.”

“Maybe you should talk to him about it,” I suggested. “Maybe you should hear it from him instead of Paul. If you’re worried about it.”

“I didn’t say I was worried. I’m just explaining. In case
you
were.”

“Okay,” I said, sitting on the swivel chair again.

“And the money,” Charlotte continued breathlessly. “The money was an entirely different issue. It had nothing to do with the accident. Dad was apparently overpaying her because he felt bad for her family. From his job at the bank, he knew what trouble the Bankses were in with their restaurant. He was just trying to be nice. He started doing that
weeks
before the accident. Paul even knew about it. And Aaron, too, maybe. Probably Aaron mentioned it to the police when they questioned him this time around. That’s my guess.”